


The Sunshine Gets a Little Dimmer, Now

by syrensxng (shootngstxr)



Series: yeah right, no one's gonna catch us now [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Beholding!Basira, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Temporary Character Death, this got way longer than i expected but i think i like it, writing elias' dialogue feels like eating sludge i hate it so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:34:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23190261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootngstxr/pseuds/syrensxng
Summary: But on that day, still recovering from what had happened, everything changed. One moment, there was nothing. The next, it felt like everything was falling around her. There was a sudden pressure from the back of her skull, immense and unrelenting, and Basira felt the Watcher’s Crown in its purest form. She gasped, falling to her knees as the Eye twisted and warped reality around her. Pain like nothing she’d felt before.And as Basira curled in on herself, clutching her head and desperately waiting for it to stop, the world outside broke.Basira picks up the pieces after the Watcher's Crown, and makes a difficult choice.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Series: yeah right, no one's gonna catch us now [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616854
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	The Sunshine Gets a Little Dimmer, Now

Basira remembers the day of the Watcher’s Crown, how it all began. She’d been in her apartment, still nursing her wounds from a week before. A cup of tea and safety with her. 

Small miracles, she supposed. 

After Jon had disappeared to go after Martin, and Trevor and Julia went after her, and the  _ thing _ that had replaced Sasha showed up, she did exactly what Daisy had told her to. She ran. Hadn’t had much of a choice, anyway. What else could she do? Basira knew better than anyone that a gun wouldn’t do anything against an Avatar, much less two of the Hunt. She wasn’t like Daisy or Jon, who resisted their entities’ lure to keep fighting against an impossible evil. Not that that was any good now. 

No, Basira wasn’t like them. She knew she wouldn’t be any good in a fight face to face with Julia and Trevor. And she wasn’t strong enough to fight against any entity that claimed her, even if it did. For all her planning and precautions she had failed. 

So what else was there left to do?

But on that day, still recovering from what had happened, everything changed. One moment, there was nothing. The next, it felt like everything was falling around her. There was a sudden pressure from the back of her skull, immense and unrelenting, and Basira  _ felt _ the Watcher’s Crown in its purest form. She gasped, falling to her knees as the Eye twisted and warped reality around her. Pain like nothing she’d felt before. 

And as Basira curled in on herself, clutching her head and desperately waiting for it to stop, the world outside broke.

The next few hours were a waiting game. Outside, creatures and monsters of all shapes and sizes wreaked havoc, the likes of which she couldn’t imagine. Here, she was safe. But Basira knew they would come for her eventually. 

She sighed, letting herself slide to the floor, still clutching the rusted metal bat she’d taken from her and Daisy’s personal stash. There were three guns strapped to her belt, all fully loaded and armed.

Not that it’d do her much good in the end, anyway. Basira let her head rest gently against the old apartment door behind her. She’d always meant to add more locks to it after everything she’d heard about Jane Prentiss, but never got around to it. Now she never would. This might be the last time she ever saw her apartment, she realised. She’d had it for so long, moved in back when she’d joined the police force and Daisy had first been assigned as her partner. 

God that was so long ago. Even now she could almost see herself on that couch with her, see Daisy pouring over case files on the dinner table, the weary, fanged smile when she woke from a nightmare. The memories made her throat close up and her eyes water. It gripped her fully for a moment, and she had to drop the bat to cover her mouth and stop herself from crying out. There wasn’t any time to mourn, she knew. But in the relative silence of the apartment, now cold and unsure, there didn’t seem to be anything else she could do. Daisy was  _ gone _ , and there wasn’t anything Basira could do to change that. 

The window across from her was closed, blinds pulled tightly around it and sealed. Light flickered outside obscured by shadows. Any second now it might be broken, shattered in front of her, the thin unsure barrier of protection gone in an instant. Somehow, that thought frightened her more than anything else. 

Basira was startled awake by the sound of wood splintering. Her heart seized in terror, and she scrambled to grab the handle of her bat before raising it high above her head. 

But nothing came. Basira didn’t know how she’d even managed to fall asleep amidst everything. She could only assume her terror had eventually worn her out. 

In any case, there was screaming coming from the room next door. Basira let herself breathe a sigh of relief, but quickly caught herself as her grip began to slacken on the bat. She still couldn’t let herself relax. From the sound of it, one of the Flesh had made its way into the apartment next door. Basira felt her heart twist in pity. It was definitely one of the nastier ones to come across. Whatever cruel being acted as fate had not been kind to those people. 

But… there was something she could still salvage from this.

Part of her felt guilty for leaving now, taking advantage of their deaths to escape. But she still had a promise to fulfill to Daisy, she thought, taking a knife from her kitchen counter. And there was no way in  _ hell _ she was going to die in a shitty downtown apartment before she did. 

She crept past the door best she could, trying hard not to let her vision stray to the carnage inside. Already a putrid smell was coming from the room alongside the sickening squelches of something she’d rather not know. 

And the screams seemed to follow her. 

Basira had expected a struggle in getting to the Institute. The last few days had done little to lessen the chaos outside, still raging wildly. And it  _ was _ terrifying. 

But when a creature of what looked to be the Stranger approached her, something unexpected happened. It had stood there, cocking its head in a twisted imitation of a human gesture, gaping eyes bearing into her. And then it had left. 

She would have put it off as a chance occurrence, but it happened twice more, once with the Web and another with the Desolation. She could only assume it was from her association with the Eye, unwilling as it was. There was no doubt in her mind that Elias was to blame from all of this. The multitude of eyes in the sky was proof enough of that. 

And the fact that she was spared from the wrath of other Entities only served to spurn her anger. Basira gripped her bat tighter and pressed on. 

Once she got to the Institute, Basira made a beeline for the filing room, where all the statements were stored.

She reached up to the top of the third cabinet, and snatched the old tape recorder from where she knew Elias would be listening. "Come and get me, you  **bastard** ." And then she took her bat and smashed into tiny pieces. It would still be some time before he came down from his office. Basira looked around at the endless file cabinets and shelves that lined the room, each filled with statements upon statements. In the meantime, there  _ was _ something she could do. 

And despite everything, a grin spread across her face.

Briefly, Basira found herself wishing she had a lighter or a match, something to burn these statements with. But Daisy had always been the one to smoke, and Basira had never picked it up herself. There was a sense of satisfaction in ripping these statements apart with her bare hands anyway, the pure fury of it all. The lack of reason in it, the futility. Unadulterated raw hate in its basic form.

Elias would hate it. 

Was this what it felt like to be part of the Hunt? At that moment, Basira felt as if she understood Daisy more than in the whole 8 years they had known each other. It felt  _ good _ . 

She felt Elias enter the room behind her. The sudden feeling of being watched, intrusive and piercing, was too strong a feeling to ignore and it took everything in her not to turn around and look at him. 

"You were expecting me?" she asked instead. 

"Of course. You'll find the drawer you were just now so rudely destroying was filled with statements  _ already _ recorded by Jon. Though I will say, Detective, this is a great deal more destructive than your usual habits. Your partner hasn't returned yet, I presume?" 

Basira's face twisted into a grimace, and she resisted the urge to snarl. That wasn't what she was here for, as good as it would feel to finally be done with Elias. He didn’t deserve a death that quick.

She turned around, ignoring the smug grin of satisfaction on the bastard’s face. “I want to know what happened.”   
“Is that all?” He raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’d be happy to answer a few questions about-”

“That’s  _ not _ what I mean.” He knew that. 

“Of course.” Elias looked Basira up and down cooly, and it took everything in her to not put a bullet in his gut at that moment. “However, I’m not so…  _ sure _ you can handle it, Detective. An Avatar must be devoted you see. Consumed with such fervid passion and aligned  _ so closely _ to their Entity that it threatens to consume them whole in its intensity. Do you think you can do that? Pledge yourself so entirely, so  _ deliberately _ that you lose yourself in the Eye’s power?” 

Basira steeled herself. She did  _ not _ come all this way to be turned down by a pompous asshole. “Maybe you’re right,” she admitted. “Maybe I don’t have that kind of one track-mindedness to me. But there is always more than one way to fear and devotion, Elias. I’m not passionate for the Eye’s work. I don’t thirst for knowledge. But I  _ am _ angry, and grieving, and desperate to keep a promise I cannot fulfill. And isn’t that just fucking  **terrifying** .” 

In that moment, she knew he would agree. 

When Basira woke her forehead was still dripping, a single bloodied bullet on the ground in front of her. 

“That’s going to leave a mark, I believe,” Elias sniffed from beside her. 

She sat up slowly, feeling her head where the bullet had made contact. He was right, infuriatingly so. The center of her forehead where she’d shot was caved in, a hole of no small size where the bullet had buried itself. 

“Did it work?” Basira croaked out. She felt suddenly exhausted, arms heavy and unmoving beside her.   
Elias raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”   
She sighed and stood, pocketing the bullet on the floor. It felt warm and steady in her hand and somehow she felt a sense of comfort in feeling it in her palm. “I don’t feel any different.” 

“You will,” Elias assured her, a cold certainty in his voice. She envied it. 

He didn’t say anything else, a faraway look in his eyes. And then Elias turned on his heel and left. 

Basira had to scramble to her feet to catch him, leaning on the door frame for support. 

“Wait, where are you going?” Elias stopped but didn’t answer, seemingly waiting for something. And then, suddenly, the answer was in her head. “You can’t just leave like that.”   
“And why not? I believe I’ve already found my replacement as head of the Institute. Temporarily, of course.”    
She felt the rage bubbling up in her again. “If you think I’m just going to run the-”   
Elias let out a sickening sharp bark of laughter. “You don’t have a  _ choice, _ Detective,| he grinned. “You need these statements now, to survive. Besides, I should think the Panopticon would make a splendid tool in your quest to find Detective Tonner. Goodbye, Basira.” 

And then she was alone. 

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to @bare1ythere for recommending the fic title An Eye for an Eye, I almost used it. Basira can wreck shit in the archives a little a bit... as a treat.


End file.
